Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in the debate on behalf of the New Democratic Party caucus.
In the time available I will focus on five areas of concern that we have with respect to Bill C-9. The number one issue is the loss of a nationally integrated and coherent port and transportation system. We are also concerned about the policing of the new ports, the privatization of them, the funding and capital expenditures required, and the superannuation plan.
Before I deal with those areas, however, I was interested in the earlier comments of the Minister of Transport today when he addressed the Chamber on Bill C-9. He acknowledged the help members of the standing committee had been in this area. Then I heard the member for Cypress Hills—Grassland lamenting that none of the opposition amendments had been accepted.
Prior to that statement I was going to encourage the minister responsible for transportation to have a word with his colleague, the minister responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board, because we certainly had that kind of treatment when that bill was before the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.
As a new member of the House I agree with the member for Cypress Hills—Grassland that committees to date have been a joke. I encourage members on the government side to see if we could not make them more meaningful in the near future.
The New Democratic Party is opposed to Bill C-9 for different reasons. I take the opportunity today to raise some of the concerns we have with the marine act. As I indicated, I want to turn first to the nationally integrated and coherent port and transportation system.
Our concern is that Bill C-9 will create a patchwork of privately run ports. With new mandates oriented to financial self-sufficiency, it is unlikely these ports will form an integral part of a coherent national strategy for meeting our transportation and regional development needs. Instead we will have a set of local activities unlinked to a national vision or plan.
I remind members of the House of what the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre was saying on this subject earlier this week. Canada is the only country in the OECD that seems not to have a national transportation vision for the near future. Ultimately the proposed privatization will have negative implications for many people presently working in the port system and the maritime industry generally.
Despite assurances from the government about job security it seems likely that as a new strictly commercial oriented management approach is brought in, jobs will be lost within the longshore and among the administrative workers who presently work within the Canada Ports Corporation. We see similar examples with the alternate service delivery in the military, this rush to privatization the government is exhibiting time after time.
There is evidence from numerous other sectors that short term financial considerations will inevitably prevail over the preservation of jobs and the maintenance of fair working conditions.
As productivity and throughput considerations become more dominant the question is who will look out for the welfare of the staff remaining in the service of the ports organization. Cuts to any workforce inevitably place additional pressures on the remaining staff. The added stress this creates is often reflected in increasing numbers of industrial accidents. There is nothing in the legislation to address this potential problem and concern.
On the item of policing of the new ports, the proposal to remove the port police from the newly created entity seems to us to be a most unwise step. Private security firms are not peace officers and traditionally do not enjoy the same range of powers enjoyed by the police.
It is likely that drug smuggling, which is already a significant problem and growing, will not be curtailed in any way and could well increase as a result of this legislation.
In fact, I want to remind the House of what the president of the Canadian Police Association was quoted as saying earlier this year. Neal Jessop said that abolishing Canada's port police will open the floodgates to the smuggling of drugs, guns and other contraband by organized crime. What passes through the ports, Mr. Jessop said, will end up on the streets of our towns and cities coast to coast to coast. What he did not add but which needs to be added is that will incur additional policing costs and personal tragedies as a result of that.
This government's privatization of our national ports and disbanding Canada Ports police will be a serious blow to the fight against organized crime in this country. This government's actions have resulted, we think, in a serious setback in the efforts to control and stop organized crime activities.
It is a well known fact in the law enforcement community that organized crime and gang activity are thriving in our ports. The result of the federal government's disbanding of the ports police and privatization will open the doors for an increase in the destructive activities, as I noted, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, auto theft and liquor and tobacco smuggling.
The Canada Ports police was created almost 30 years ago in 1968 and represented a highly specialized and dedicated police force with skills and powers specifically designed to combat organized crime, smuggling and gang activities.
Other jurisdictions, the United States being one example but there are many others, have experimented with similar privatization schemes for their ports and have had to re-evaluate their actions in the face of increases in criminal activities in those other countries and to reinstate specialized port police and take back control of the ports.
We note that with this bill Canada is going in a very different and, we would submit, wrong headed direction in this regard. It is noteworthy that numerous case files and ongoing investigations into organized crime and gang activities were either halted or compromised with the removal of the Canada Ports police from the Vancouver port.
On the opposite coast, the Atlantic coast, in a few weeks the Halifax port police will be disbanded and we are sure that organized crime is waiting and marking the days on its calendar until that disbandment occurs.
In other words, with the privatization of our national ports, this government is putting out the welcome sign for gangs and organized crime and putting our communities and citizens at risk.
With regard to the privatization of ports consistent with the withdrawal of federal presence from other matters of concern to coastal residents, the privatization fits into an ongoing pattern where we are seeing this government withdraw from a host of activities and functions vital to the well-being of communities and here we are concerned about coastal communities.
Cutbacks to the coast guard, search and rescue capacity, the automation of lighthouses were the forerunner and backdrop to the port privatization. There are estimated to be approximately 500 public ports and harbours in Canada and it is safe to assume that communities with ports smaller than those of Vancouver, Halifax and Montreal will feel the brunt of this legislation.
The question that needs to be asked is why is the Liberal government turning its back on the legitimate needs of our smaller coastal communities.
In dealing with funding and capital expenditures, the bill fails to provide for the capital financing required to construct new port facilities at some future date. The submission of the Halifax Port Development Commission is highly instructive on this point and worth quoting:
The funding needed for construction of major port facilities can only be arranged in part, if at all, in the private sector. No private sector lender or investor can advance the bulk of such funding against user commitments which may or may not materialize when the facilities are completed, and if they do not materialize, may or may not continue until the funding has been repaid. Under such a scenario, funding can only come from governments which have the necessary financial resources and can justify, in the interests of promoting the economy of their constituents, the assumption of the attendant commercial risk.
Had Bill C-9 been in effect in the late 1960s, Halifax would never have been able to build and equip even one container berth and the harbour would long ago have fallen into disuse.
Should these ports be privatized, will they be required to disclose their capital expenditure plans for local community input and review? The kind of secrecy that normally shrouds the investment activities of private companies must not be allowed to prevail within the ports where a range of public groups has a vital stake in the financial posture of them. Why has the government not chosen to make mandated public disclosure of financial plans a precondition for the transfer of the ports into the private sector?
I want to turn now to superannuation because the first version of this bill did not include the continuance of the pension plan for ports employees once the port is transferred.
Our caucus brought forward an amendment at committee stage which called for the continuance of the superannuation. The ports employees have belonged to that system for decades now and they have been devoted to achieving the success which the ports have had over the years. It would be most unfair for these employees to lose their pension benefits.
Those employees who planned their retirement based on that plan should have had the opportunity to continue with the plan. However, unfortunately our motion was defeated. A member of the Bloc introduced a similar motion at report stage, one which we were pleased to support, but again it was defeated. Then the Liberals introduced a motion for comparable employee benefits. Naturally it passed. It is certainly better than nothing, but we wanted it to go further, as did the Bloc, to protect employee benefits.
These are the major concerns we have with the bill, the failure of the nationally integrated and coherent port, the policing aspect of the new ports, the privatization of them, the concern about funding and capital expenditure, and the superannuation plan for long service employees at the ports.
As a result of the deficiencies which we find in the bill, we will be voting against it. We believe that Canada needs a nationally integrated transportation system and it will not be possible with privatized ports.
